


couper à votre point de vue

by CampionSayn



Series: September Morning Bells [5]
Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Flash Fic, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Post-Episode: s01e21 Secret of the Sundrop, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:55:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26363800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CampionSayn/pseuds/CampionSayn
Summary: Hear that? That's the sound of becoming a better person.
Relationships: Pete the Guard & Varian (Disney: Tangled), Pete the Guard/Stan the Guard (Disney: Tangled), Queen Arianna of Corona & Varian (Disney), Ruddiger & Varian (Disney), Stan the Guard & Varian (Disney: Tangled)
Series: September Morning Bells [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1906099
Comments: 12
Kudos: 44





	couper à votre point de vue

What if, at any point between Varian being put in the wagon and Rapunzel going off into the unknown, someone, some _people_ ever said the word, " _No_ ," to King Frederic of Corona.  
  
What if the Captain of the Guard went down to check that the Alchemist had been put in a cell in the dungeons and instead found him curled up in Stan's arms; hyperventilating, scared out of his mind, repeating things like, "It was my fault, I can't help him, I'm sorry," with his raccoon spotting the Captain and bristling up to look three times his natural size.  
  
What if Pete stopped him at the door to the barracks, far more intimidating without the gold of armor and helmet, and a look on his face that spoke louder than if he had said nothing at all, but he did and what he said had the Captain taking a step back, "He'll answer to the Queen, because that's fair. But the King doesn't get a say in this."  
  
Because the King was largely to fault for this scene, and the Captain was loyal but he had been a part of the cover up, had been one of the men that chased a barely fifteen year old teenager into hiding, into the underground, into a further kind of madness born of desperation and the decay of spirit.  
  
The Queen was called into the situation, into the decision, when the King was sleeping, when he wasn't looking and Nigel was himself asleep, which was the only time that a choice could be made fairly and without the absolute bias of the King presuming to think that he was always right.  
  
In this situation, in this time and place, Varian had not been subjected to the cruelty of the other guards, of the other prisoners, of cellmates going in and out of his life like a revolving door of manipulation and black eyes. But he was still terrified, and still shaking, and still too thin, with dark swatches beneath his eyes that made Arianna more angry at her husband for allowing such things to happen more than she was at being kidnapped and in danger.  
  
"You will stay in the barracks here with Stan and Pete. You will work to make up for terrifying the other citizens until my daughter and her entourage come back. We will decide more in time," she said with all the finality a royal worthy of their station should have, without having to SAY they were royal if someone disagreed with them, "You are under my jurisdiction in this, Varian. Do you understand?"  
  
He understood the words and their meaning, even as he feared them and any hidden agenda they might be holding, like a razor in a cake or broken glass hidden in sand, so he gulped down the bile that started to rise in his throat since her entrance and nodded, "Yes, ma'am."  
  
  
It wasn't like being a puppet made to entertain when others were bored, it wasn't being used for the unsavory individuals that the boy had seen among the guards that trapped him in Old Corona like prey, it wasn't like being a single card in a trick deck that might be used in a disappearing act.  
  
  
It was Stan watching from the doorway as Varian painted an entire royal hallway of the palace beige, Ruddiger at his feet helping out as best he could by dragging the paint buckets around or running up Varian's back to sit on his head and stretch his tiny arms to reach nooks and crannies Varian was too small to finish on his own.  
  
It was Pete observing him gather leagues of chicken eggs in whites and browns, speckled and splotched, the cackling hens either greeting him with suspicion and pecks to bare feet or running away as Ruddiger broke up fights happening among them that would have ended in their eggs breaking under their clawed feet.  
  
It was Varian's eyes losing their dark splotches with time in the kitchens where Pete taught him how to make multi-flavored scones and Stan butted in once and a while to rile the other up and nab a kiss or two when they thought he wasn't looking. Being ridiculous, but kind and dependable where nobody else but Ruddiger seemed to be.  
  
It was, once or twice, being ordered by the Captain to take care of the horses in any way that Stan and Pete could remember; all of the guard horses looking at him after a few days of Ruddiger talking to them like they agreed that he shouldn't be under guard. All of them allowed him to brush out their manes and refit their metal shoes and pad them down with an oil of his own invention that kept flies away from them, and they adored him by the end of it.  
  
It was being allowed to assist Xavier in town with equipment that he couldn't make on his own, even as strong and wise as he was; Varian skittish under his line of sight and staying far away from the windows so other villagers wouldn't see him. Xavier mentioning in his absent rambling of tales Varian's predicament reminded him of, of a mood tonic the princess and her friends had found themselves in the thrall of, that Varian laughed for the first time in something like a year.  
  
  
It was five weeks before Rapunzel would return, Cassandra angry and bitter right after that, that the Queen had him come up to her library as she sat near a window doing her daily painting--badly--and had him find many books and titles and reorganize the system to make locating them easier; and asked him questions after two hours and she had their lunch brought up by Stan and Pete, Ruddiger at their heels munching on a giant Chanterelle mushroom.  
  
It was her understanding, saying, "It wasn't your fault, Varian. Not _all_ your fault."  
  
  
It was really all he wanted.


End file.
